Author: SYMPSON [SIMPSON] (Christopher):
Title: A Compendium: Or Introduction to Practical Musick In Five Parts. Teaching, by a New, and Easie Method, 1. The Rudiments of Song. 2. The Principles of Composition. 3. The Use of Discords. 4. The Form of Figurate Descant. 5. The Contrivance of Cannon. The Eighth Edition with Additions: Much more Correct than any former, the Examples being put in the most useful Cliffs.
Description: London: Printed by W. Pearson, for Arthur Bettesworth and Charles Hitch...[et al], 1732. Small 8vo, 172 x 99 mms., pp. [xiv], 144, engraved portrait of Simpson as frontispiece, music illustrations throughout text; contemporary name on title-page scribbled out, purchase note for August 1909 with initials H T F on recto of front free end-paper, 19th century library binding of quarter red sheepskin (defective), pebbled boards, library bookplate of Wigan Free Public Library on front paste-down end-paper; ex-library and except for the binding a useful copy. Simpson (1605 - 1669) published this work in 1665, and it was frequently revised and reprinted. New Grove declares him to be "the most important English writer on music of his time," and no less a figure than John Locke praised this work as a "new, plain and rational; omitting nothing necessary, nor adding any thing superfluous." Probably a reissue of the fourth edition with cancel titlepage and second preliminary leaf.

Keywords: music songs prose


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